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don't say "bomb" on the internet
by I=(!isnum(self)) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Below is from EFF source. Does anyone have specifics on where this piece of idiocy is supposedly going from here? When does Congress reconvene on this issue? Any specific activities going on regarding this piece of crap? [begin quote]======================================================================== This is the language that Feinstein inserted into the Defense Authorization Act. It has been passed by the Senate. This is not good, but significantly different from her first effort last Spring (a similar amendment, to the S.735 anti-terrorism bill of 1995). This language is technology-neutral. However, it does have a very slippery 'intent' or 'knowledge' standard, and though the language of the bill does not directly focus on the Internet, all of Feinstein's commentary on the Senate floor and to the press have focused exclusively on "bomb-making information" on the Internet. Though this new version of her Net censorship proposal is possibly constitutional, unlike the earlier one, a key question that all constituents and journalists need to ask of Sen. Feinstein is: If you are simply trying to criminalize online incitement of, or conspiracy to commit, murder by bomb, then what on earth does this bill do? Both of these things are *already illegal* online or offline. S.1762 Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 (Passed by the Senate) SEC. 1088. PROHIBITION ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION RELATING TO EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS FOR A CRIMINAL PURPOSE. (a) UNLAWFUL CONDUCT- Section 842 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection: `(l) It shall be unlawful for any person to teach or demonstrate the making of explosive materials, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture of explosive materials, if the person intends or knows, that such explosive materials or information will be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal criminal offense or a criminal purpose affecting interstate commerce.'. (b) PENALTY- Section 844(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended-- (1) by striking `(a) Any person' and inserting `(a)(1) Any person'; and (2) by adding at the end the following: `(2) Any person who violates subsection (l) of section 842 of this chapter shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.'.

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Re: US Power Outages
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:02 PM 8/11/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: >At 06:15 PM 8/11/96 -0400, Dave Farber wrote: >>attempt to explain that blackout and how to prevent such. We have not >>progressed very far. The avalanche behavior of power systems is still not >>well understood and techniques to prevent such failures are not obvious. > >It surprises me how little these systems appear to be monitored. >It took some hours for them to decide that the brush fire on the >California border didn't cause the system to shut down; >you'd think they'd know quickly that the subsystem shut itself down >or disconnected from the grid or whatever because of reason #17... The story previously being promoted says that approximately at the Oregon/California border, a fire caused problems with the transmission line. This morning, I read the new claim: extreme heat (presumably assisted by heat dissipated in the power line itself) cause the power cables near The Dalles (about 100 miles east of Portland, along the Columbia river) to stretch and sag, eventually shorting themselves out to trees near the ground. I find this claim EXTREMELY hard to believe. The temperature coefficient of expansion of steel is about 10 ppm/degree C, which means that even if the power lines heated up 200 degrees C, that's only 2000 ppm longer, or about 0.2% I don't know the formula to determine the length of a catenary, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but I'd imagine that this 0.2% increase in length won't increase the amount of sag by more than a factor of 10 higher, or 2%. That amount should be almost ignorable if the power line was competently installed and maintained. >One of my concerns about the situation is that it's only a week >or two after Clinton's speech about how The Government needs to protect the >National Information Infrastructure for us. I'm not paranoid enough >to think that they did it, but I'm sure that within a week we'll >see Al Gore or somebody making an NII Protection Agency speech >and Louis Freeh explaining that we need enhanced wiretap underwriting >to make sure that encryption-wielding hackers don't do it again. I've long believed that if incidents such as these were the work of saboteurs, it is in the interest of the ordinary citizen that communication with those responsible is maintained. If, on the other hand, the fact of the sabotage is covered up, that will only lead to more. The government, on the other hand, has an illegitimate interest in seeing it hidden (where it can be hidden; and where the government can't see a good reason to publicize it), because if uncovered it would tend to force the government to actually deal with the dissatisfied citizenry: not merely the ones doing the sabotage, but also the ones who have heard what their motivations are and at least partly agree with them. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: US Power Outages
by ericd＠shop.internet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Also remember that you have to deal with capacitive/bleedoff issues as well. It is hard to throw the off switch to an active 500,000 volt/??amp transmission line, esp under heavy load. The power in transit has gotta go somewhere. This gets even more fun when you deal with long haul DC transmission systems. These systems are the basis for a *very* large capacitor. MILES of flown wire, air dielectric, and earth. As metioned below, most all of the protection systems are in the "protect my local equipment" mode. So what do you do? The basis today is to watch voltage, current, and waveform (freq/shape stability). "Protect mode" happens if one is too far out of wack. It would take far too much time to cross ref local data against other remote monitoring stations to confirm validity. The time required to check the data would result in local system damage. Lets also not forget to protect the power yard worker(s) standing under the entrance busses when the surge comes knocking! Eric At 12:22 AM 8/12/96, Jim McCoy wrote: >Lucky (crypto-leprechaun) wrote: >> At 18:15 8/11/96, Dave Farber wrote: >> >The avalanche behavior of power systems is still not >> >well understood and techniques to prevent such failures are not obvious. >> >Same can be said of telephone and computer networks at different levels. >> >> Does somebody here have a pointer to literature on this topic? A system in >> which small localized disturbances can amplify, propagate through the >> system, leading to catastrophic failure is the worst of all possible >> designs. I fail to understand why a system as important as the power grid >> would display this type of behavior. Why is the grid negatively dampened? > >Because the system designed to fail non-destructively rather than risk >a power surge. Part of the problem is that the power being controlled >moves as fast as any information about the state of the network: all >decisions must be made locally at the switch level. When a major line >fails the power generation stations can not just "turn off the juice" at >the speed required, the power must either be redistributed or else the >switch overloads and shuts down to prevent a massive power spike. The >power companies would rather face the ire of consumers without power for >an evening than the outcry that would happen if every toaster, microwave, >and computer on the west coast was fried by the spike caused by 3 gigawatts >being dumped into grids that could not handle the load (not to mention the >long-term blackouts caused by local switching equipment getting fried.) >In this case the system must fail to prevent damage. > >The great east coast blackout was caused by a $50 switch which wore out. >The switch happened to control a chunk of load which was re-routed on to >another line, causing a cascade failure as the excess load caused other >switches to fail when it was dumped on to those lines (and the excess >load caused by these other switches tripping accellerated the failure.) >Power distribution is not like telecom, if a phone switch dies the calls >end; the failure does not endanger the upstream switch with overload >from bits not going anywhere. > >Imagine that cars on highways had no brakes until they reached an offramp >but the DOT could apply a kill-switch to segments between offramps (tying >this thread into another non-crypto thread on the list :),if a failure in >the roadway caused traffic to stop then all of the upstream traffic would >have to be dumped off the road via offramps that were only one or two lanes. >This would cause further bottlenecks and the kill-switch would need to be >applied to more and more segments upstream to prevent the traffic stopped >or being slowly bled off from causing more problems. No imagine that >offramp-to-offramp messages were transmitted via messengers travelling >upstream in the carpool lane :) > >Even the power company's secret experiments in the cores of nuclear reactors >have not found a way to get around the 186,000 km/s speed limit on everything. > >jim ----------------------------------------------------- Eric Davis ericd(a)cyberfarm.com Co-Founder MediaCast: http://www.mediacast.com/ -----------------------------------------------------

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Re: Unmetered Net Usage
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:20 PM 8/11/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > >Will "unmetered" usage go away? It depends on a lot of factors. Right now, >unmetered usage is a big enough marketing draw that it appears to >outcompete metered usage plans. Sure, there are people like me who pay a >flat rate (in my case, $20/month) and yet who are on for several hours a >day. But the subscribers who also pay the $20/mo and yet who are on only >briefly to check their mail are not clamoring to switch to metered usage. > >If Internet telephony becomes a big deal, I still suspect unmetered usage >will be common. If the capacity isn't there, from the ISP through the >various links to the other person's ISP then there will be stalls and >delays. Think of it as evolution in action, like crowded freeways. We need to consider separately costs of unmetered access to the ISP, and unmetered access to the Internet. I expect that the main reason for these limited-time plans have little to do with Internet traffic, and a lot to do with local phone link limits. One big cost for at least small ISPs is local telephone lines. Due to the "infinite wisdom" of rate commissions, business-line charges are substantially higher than residential. (and ISP's are businesses...) A person who uses 6 hours per day of connection to his ISP is occupying at least 1/4th of the capacity of one phone line, and given typical circadian usage patterns, in practice he's using 1/3rd or more. If the ISP's cost for that telephone line is $30 per month, then that user must be charged $10 per month for this service just to cover this cost. That customer, however, might only be using a rather tiny fraction of the ISP's actual Internet-line capacity, except possibly when his Internet telephone is operating. Also, the customer isn't inclined to occupy his own telephone for this length of time, either, especially if he has only one line. So it seems to me that within 5 years or so, there ought to be a powerful incentive to wire up apartment complexes and business parks with alternative Internet/Internet-telephone connections, ones which bypass the phoneco for at least the first few hundred feet. This, possibly in concert with a ISDN-driving concentrator or a cable-modem, should reduce the cost of the customer-to-the-ISP line to a very low value. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: [off-topic] Re: US Power Outages
by Dave Farber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I dnt have the reference handy bit IEEE Spectrum published in about May 66 a real good description of why the Great Northeast Blackout happened.

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Re: National Socio-Economic Security Need for Encryption Technology
by Arun Mehta 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:36 11/08/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > >Bart Croughs writes: >> But there is another axiom of economics which the >> nationalist/socialist can use for his case against the free movement of >> capital. This axiom states that the wages of workers depend on the >> amount of capital invested. The more capital invested, the higher the >> wages are. > >This must be some new axiom of economics that I had not heard of. > >> If American companies are moving capital to Third World >> countries because of the low wages in these countries, then the workers >> in the Third World will of course be better off. But in the US, the >> amount of capital will be lowered. > >???? > >> So the American workers will be able to get other jobs, but these >> jobs will pay less, because of the diminished amount of capital in >> the US. > >This is truly one of the oddest economic theses I've seen in years. Indeed. Bart makes a very remarkable assumption, which is that the total amount of capital in the fastest growing industry in human history is constant. As I mentioned in my note (which was a bit long by my standards, so you are forgiven if you haven't read it) software producers are software consumers as well. So, if the software industry grows in the world, it can only benefit the producers in the US, who make most of the compilers and sophisticated utilities that programmers need in order to develop software. The danger to the US software writer comes from another direction, one which this list is thoroughly familiar with: government policies, such as ITAR. Gilmore, I believe, plans to get the software written for secure Internet routing outside the US, to not fall foul of ITAR. As security, internet commerce and other applications needing crypto become a more important part of software development, others might follow -- of course it won't hurt that the move reduces costs, but that will not be the prime motivation. This will not be the first industry that the US government developed and nurtured, only to hand on a platter to foreign competitors: CNC machine tools is an example I am familiar with. For long, the writing was on the wall, but when the debacle came, it was swift. If I'm not mistaken, the Japanese share in the US market of CNC machining centers increased from 2% to 51% over a 2-year period. The problem there, at least partly, was that government encouraged machine tool R&D and industry to cater to the needs of defense, rather than the rest of us. Sounds familiar? So, while US software isn't in any danger of losing quite that badly, as I have explained, if the US loses revenue and capital in this sector, it will only have its own government to blame. Arun Mehta Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103 amehta(a)cpsr.org http://www.cerfnet.com/~amehta/ finger amehta(a)cerfnet.com for public key

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Re: FCC_ups
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own, I do not speak for Ameritech or it's alliance partners. Lucky Green writes: >I am glad to see some movement in this area. I designed a similar >system for a previous employer of mine. But the real choke point >is the local loop. As of this day, the local telos still have a de >facto monopoly in the local markets. The new competitors (the same >old Phone Company) that we will see in the near future seem to >show no desire to deliver the really interesting services that are >now possible. They long distance carriers about to enter the local >markets plan to offer the same old stuff at a (perhaps) somewhat >lower price. First I would like to mention Lucky that I always enjoy your posts. Second I would like to say that as I have mentioned previously, the RBOC I work for filed for complete unbundling of the local loop in March of 93. We are not the one's holding up the show. >The company I used to work for has technology capable of >delivering a 10 Mb/s Ethernet plus 100 ISDN B channels to your >home, using the very same wires already in your wall. Keep this in >mind next time you hear what great new services the local telcos >are about to offer. Then demand better. 10 Mb/s ethernet and 100 ISDN B channels (64k each)? I would certainly like to here more! Unfortunately as I have also previously pointed out, point-to-point copper is a thing of the past, it is rare and expensive now. The current fiber-to-the-curb standard involves "slick 96" muxes which use 4 framed T-1's (1.536 Mb/s) to provide 96 voice channels. Thanks for the info. Brian

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Re: US Power Outages
by ericd＠shop.internet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:02 PM 8/11/96, Bill Stewart wrote: >It surprises me how little these systems appear to be monitored. >It took some hours for them to decide that the brush fire on the >California border didn't cause the system to shut down; >you'd think they'd know quickly that the subsystem shut itself down >or disconnected from the grid or whatever because of reason #17... The fire "story" was, I guess, a result of excessive media fodder. (whatever sells the headlines....) Example: This morning (Monday 7:00am PST) STATION A: Replayed a recorded press briefing, with a head from PG&E, stating that the cause is *not* yet known, however it *MIGHT* have something to do with the excessive loads/demands on the system during the high temp season. (AC units running, etc..) -- minutes later -- STATION B: A newsperson *read* the news. This person stated, "At a recent press briefing, a PG&E official said the outage *WAS* caused by excessive loads. (quoting the same briefing that I just heard, from the source, on STATION A) Thank you Mass Media! Eric Reminds me of the aftermath of the last large SF quake. I lived in Santa Cruz at the time. After the quake we all kicked back and had a large yard party to kill the time. An, un-named, news network was broadcasting, nation wide, live telephone calls from people in the SF area. One call was from a person in Santa Cruz, or so he said. He told the news network, and at the same time live to the nation, that Santa Cruz was completely leveled, dead bodies everywhere, and only a handfull of people seemed to have survive. Needless to say my Grandparents in Tennessee were not to excited... ----------------------------------------------------- Eric Davis ericd(a)cyberfarm.com Co-Founder MediaCast: http://www.mediacast.com/ -----------------------------------------------------

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Re: Unmetered Net Usage
by Yanni 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So it seems to me that within 5 years or so, there ought to be a > powerful incentive to wire up apartment complexes and business parks > with alternative Internet/Internet-telephone connections, ones > which bypass the phoneco for at least the first few hundred feet. > This, possibly in concert with a ISDN-driving concentrator or > a cable-modem, should reduce the cost of the customer-to-the-ISP line to > a very low value. > > Jim Bell > jimbell(a)pacifier.com I can see it now. Apartments full of geeks because the apartments were originally built with 100BaseX to each place and a T3 in the basement going direct to the local ISP. Tack on another $200/month or whatever to the apartment cost ( geeks can afford that for sure ) and one might end up having a pretty nice online melrose place. I wonder if anybody has done that yet... -jon Jon (no h) S. Stevens yanni(a)clearink.com ClearInk WebMagus http://www.clearink.com/ finger pgp(a)sparc.clearink.com for pgp pub key We are hiring! http://www.clearink.com/clearink/home/job.html

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Re: Read; NOW
by Chris Adams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 11 Aug 96 23:24:24 -0800, unix_code(a)geocities.com wrote: > Hi I'm Unix Code and have a few things to ask...(it may not go with >Cryptography but go ahead and read) I won't say anything if you won't... # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> - Webpages for sale! Se habla JavaScript! # Automatically receive my resume or PGPKEY by sending email with a subject # of 'send PGPKEY' or 'send resume'. Capitalization counts so be careful! # Web site: http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp

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